FRIDAY GUY by Yuri Gascon

FRIDAY GUY

"There is no bigger shame than the one you would put me through by being who you are. Your life is nothing, a meaningless mockery of existence for I'd rather have a son who is a drug dealer, a murderer, a thief than one like you." These are the words that Alexander heard from his own mother when he was just 8 years old.

Marked by guilt, shame and fear, Alexander went on living not as a protagonist but as a sideline character in his own life.

This is a story of survival and endurance but also of heartache and despicable evil.

TOPICS OF CONVERSATION

• Why Yuri Gascon wrote Friday Guy. About five years ago, he finally faced his past. Two years ago, he started writing down pieces of his life, without planning to write a book. He calls the result a brutally honest memoir and wrote it so that people living with any kind of trauma know they aren’t alone.
• The fifteen minutes that changed his life. At eight, after his mother blamed him for the abuse he suffered, he looked in the mirror and decided he had to become someone else. He explains why he has never seen himself as a victim.
• His twenty-year marriage to Darla. He married Darla for love and was secretly seeing men for years. He says he never reconciled the two. Today they talk almost daily and spend Christmas together.
• Faith and conversion therapy. Yuri was raised Catholic and joined a conservative church. Determined not to be gay, he went through conversion therapy willingly. He still believes in God, but not in religion as control.
• His second marriage, to Vincent, and his darkest day. In 2024, his marriage to Vincent fell apart, and he came close to ending his life. He shares, for the first time, what a friend said on the phone call that pulled him back.
• The title and the poems. The title comes from a moment with Salvador, the man he fell in love with. Every poem in the book was written after he met Salvador, whose name means “savior” in Spanish.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Yuri Gascon is a Spanish writer and citizen of the world. He speaks 4 languages: Czech, English, Greek & Spanish.

He’s lived in Europe and the Americas and currently resides in Barcelona, Spain.

Yuri has a bachelor’s degree in Marketing and a master’s degree in Communication.

Friday Guy is his first book, and it is entirely based on his own life. It took him several years to be able to put into words all the experiences, emotions and learnings from trauma. For a while, he thought he had lost creativity and passion for writing. Finding love was the way to reclaim them.

You can learn more about the author and his work at:

Website: https://yurigascon.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ygascon
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yuri_sens8

If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 in the U.S. or Canada to reach a suicide crisis line, any time.